"I have heard their income is much reduced," said Edouard gently.

"Income! I would not change with them if they'd throw me in half a
pancake a day. I tell you they are the poorest family for leagues round;
not that they need be quite so starved, if they could swallow a little
of their pride. But no, they must have china and plate and fine linen
at dinner; so their fine plates are always bare, and their silver
trays empty. Ask the butcher, if you don't believe ME. Just you ask him
whether he does not go three times to the smallest shopkeeper, for once
he goes to Beaurepaire. Their tenants send them a little meal and eggs,
and now and then a hen; and their great garden is chock full of fruit
and vegetables, and Jacintha makes me dig in it gratis; and so they
muddle on. But, bless your heart, coffee! they can't afford it; so they
roast a lot of horse-beans that cost nothing, and grind them, and serve
up the liquor in a silver coffee-pot, on a silver salver. Haw, haw,
haw!"

"Is it possible? reduced to this?" said Edouard gravely.

"Don't you be so weak as to pity them," cried the remorseless plebeian.
"Why don't they melt their silver into soup, and cut down their plate
into rashers of bacon? why not sell the superfluous, and buy the
needful, which it is grub? And, above all, why don't they let their old
tumble-down palace to some rich grocer, and that accursed garden along
with it, where I sweat gratis, and live small and comfortable, and pay
honest men for their little odd jobs, and"--

Here Riviere interrupted him, and asked if it was really true about the
beans.